Christina Whitlock, Beyond Measure Podcast

Today, I Confess: Some things are NOT Working this season... Once per quarter, I release an episode of the podcast reflecting on things that ARE working well for me in this season of life. ...to balance things out, I usually share a list of what is NOT working here in my e-letter. Well, today's the day, friends. ☀️ So, lest you think everything is sunshine and rainbows over here, allow me to share some things that have me feeling less-than-stellar lately... No. 1: A Smaller Student Roster...

Today, I Confess: I Get Jealous of Other Teachers You should know by now, I'm a big fan of self-reflection questions. There are several things I ask myself on a regular basis, including What's Working? and What's Not?. ...but I recently heard author Gretchen Rubin suggest a point of reflection I've never spent time on: Who are you jealous of? We all know the tropes: Comparison is the thief of joy. Everything you have today is something someone else is praying for. ...the list goes on and on....

Today, I Confess: Friendship as a Marketing Strategy is THE WORST. (A rant) I've been stuck in a thought spiral this week and I'm going to try my best to put it into words: If you know anything about marketing, especially online marketing, you know building trust with your audience is a foundational step to a successful business. Being "relatable" is a tactic used by many salespeople, and (spoiler alert:) it works. Anyone studying my work would assume I'm playing the same game. I mean, I call...

Today, I Confess: Sometimes I Focus on the Wrong Things... Oh, the irony... This week on the podcast, I kicked off a series examining things that distract us from doing our best work. I've compiled quite the list of shiny objects that cause teachers to lose their way. I'm excited to share more with you in the weeks to come. Here's what I didn't see coming: This week, I became a victim of my own distraction. My studio year kicked off on Monday, which is a relatively big deal around here. There...

Today, I Confess: It's Been 30 Years and I'm Still Figuring This Out... It's official, friends: I've been teaching piano lessons for THIRTY YEARS! Cue the party horns... Short story: I grew up as a big fish in a small pond and was hired to teach at my small-town music store at age 14. Did I know what I was doing? Of course not! Nevertheless, I quickly fell in love with piecing together The Human Puzzle (through the lens of piano study) and the rest is history. I've been a piano teacher for...

Today, I Confess: Sometimes Lessons are TOO Familiar... *psst! HELLO to my new friends from NCKP! 👋 I'm so glad you are here! In his opening keynote for the NCKP Innovation Summit last week, Randy Faber talked about Familiarity Bias. In a nutshell, our lived experiences make it difficult to see new paths forward. This is a roadblock to innovative teaching practices because we get too familiar with the lesson process and become blind to new possibilities that could benefit our students. Many...

Today, I Confess: Summer is Different Now. ...just a QUICK note for today: Summer is different. I hear it from teachers and parents and caretakers... it really is a whole new ballgame. ⚾ I'll be tackling some of my thoughts on dealing with the changing landscape of summer on the podcast next month, but for now, I just want to offer solidarity. If you feel like summer has lost its ease, that's because - for a lot of us - it has. 21st century Achievement Culture has pushed its way into summer...

Today, I Confess: I Don't Take Play Seriously Enough. (and chances are, you don't either) Where are my overachievers at? 🙋♀️ You and I both know: we live in a society that values work. I have now spent 43 years on this planet, most of them trying to prove my worth through productivity. If you can identify, I hope you'll listen to my conversation with Vanessa Cornett from last summer. Vanessa is one of my go-to voices of reason in this sometimes-volatile musician life. Here's an interesting...

Today, I Confess: I Wasn't Going to Take a Break... There are some funny (re: strange) things that go on behind the scenes of the content creators you follow... Myself included. Last week, a fellow podcaster left me a series of voice messages, lamenting how she woke up in the middle of the night with a nagging thought of something she needed to "fix" in her upcoming episode. One thing led to another, and that one adjustment ran her entire weekend off the rails. "Remind me why we do this...